On October 24, 1733, the Georgia trustees ordered a ship to Rotterdam to pick up a group of Lutherans expelled from Salzburg, Austria, and then send the Salzburgers to Georgia.
On October 25, 1774, the First Continental Congress addressed a petition to King George III raising concerns about the Coercive Acts passed by Parliament and asserting its loyalty to the monarch.
On October 24, 1775, Lord John Murray Dunmore, British Governor of Virginia, ordered the British fleet to attack Norfolk, VA.
On October 24, 1790, the Rev. John Wesley wrote the last entry in his journal, which he began keeping on October 14, 1735.
The wooden keel of USS Monitor was laid at Continental Iron Works at Greenpoint, New York on October 25, 1861.
The first American “Unknown Soldier” was chosen on October 24, 1921 in Chalons-sur-Marne, France.
Bearing the inscription “An Unknown American who gave his life in the World War,” the chosen casket traveled to Paris and then to Le Havre, France, where it would board the cruiser Olympia for the voyage across the Atlantic. Once back in the United States, the Unknown Soldier was buried in Arlington National Cemetery, near Washington, D.C.
On the Presidential campaign trail, Franklin Delano Roosevelt arrived in Atlanta on October 23, 1932, speaking to 10,000, and continued on to his “second home” at Warm Springs, Georgia.
FDR campaigning in Atlanta and Georgia in 1932.
When he arrived at Warm Springs, FDR gave a short speech:
“Two more weeks to go. . . . First, let me say this: this old hat, a lot of you people have seen it before. It’s the same hat. But I don’t think it is going to last much longer after the 8th of November. I have a superstition about hats in campaigns, and I am going to wear it until midnight of the 8th of November. . . . Well, it’s fine to see, and I’m looking forward to coming down here for the usual Thanksgiving party at Warm Springs, and having a real old-fashioned Thanksgiving with my neighbors again. I thank you!”
The Charter of the United Nations took effect on October 24, 1945.
On October 24, 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower pledged the United States’ support for the South Vietnam government led by President Ngo Dinh Diem.
On October 23, 1971, the Coca-Cola Company launched the advertising campaign “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke.”
On October 24, 1976, Newsweek released a poll showing Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter leading President Gerald Ford in 24 states, with a combined 308 electoral voters.
Georgia-born Clarence Thomas was sworn in as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court on October 23, 1991.
Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections
Here are today’s General Election stats, drawn from the Absentee voter file released daily by the Secretary of State’s office:
Total votes cast: 2,479,268
Mail-in votes cast: 1,001,874
Electronic votes cast: 7,961
In-person votes cast: 1,469,433
Electronic ballots are only available in elections that include federal candidates, and are available to U.S. service members or citizens residing overseas.
We’ll pass 2.5 million total votes cast today.
Democratic U.S. Senator and Vice Presidential candidate Kamala Harris (CA) will be in Atlanta today, according to the AJC.
Harris is set to headline several virtual fundraisers after arriving in Atlanta before participating in a rally late Friday to urge Georgians to vote early during the final stretch of the race, and it follows the second and final presidential debate.
It is Harris’ first visit to Georgia since Biden tapped her as his running-mate in August from a group of finalists that included former gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms.
Democrats hope Harris, the first woman of color on a major party’s presidential ticket, will help energize Black voters who form the backbone of the Democratic party in Georgia. More than 2.3 million Georgians have already voted early, and overall turnout is expected to surpass 5 million – smashing a state record.
A flurry of recent polls show Biden and Trump deadlocked in the state, which Democrats last carried in 1992. And Trump was forced to visit Macon last week to mobilize white rural voters to boost his re-election bid.
United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar predicted in Atlanta that a COVID-19 vaccine will be available by the end of the year, according to the Valdosta Daily Times.
“I know it’s been a difficult year for Americans. But we are going to come through this on the other side,” Redfield said. “I’m also optimistic that we’ll have a limited supply of one or more COVID-19 vaccines available for distribution before the end of this year. But we’re not quite there yet.”
Azar gave a more detailed idea of the vaccine distribution which would go to vulnerable individuals — older Americans and those at high-risk of severe outcomes to COVID-19 — and health care workers.
“We expect that we would have, by the end of this year, enough vaccine that is FDA-authorized to be able to vaccinate all of the most vulnerable individuals,” the Trump health official said. “Then by the end of January, we expect we’d have enough to vaccinate all seniors, as well as our health care workers and first responders — and by the end of March to early April, enough to vaccinate for all Americans who would want to take a vaccine.”
Governor Brian Kemp spoke to the UGA College Republicans via Zoom call, according to the Red and Black.
“Certainly from an election standpoint we’re in a real fight right now to make America great again and to continue to save our country from the radical left,” said Kemp.
In his message to the College Republicans, he criticized Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden, saying Biden’s economic policies will “ruin the great American comeback.”
“We’ve got to be the red wall and stop the blue wave that the national press is trying to convince everybody that we’re going to be having here [in Georgia],” Kemp said.
“It’s really the radical wing of their party that has taken control and pushed things like the new green deal [Green New Deal] and defunding the police, getting rid of school resource officers, having government-run healthcare and really just trying to ruin our economy,” Kemp said.
The Floyd County jail has a COVID-19 outbreak with 22 positive tests, according to the Rome News Tribune.
The Floyd County Jail went to Code Red on its coronavirus protocol Thursday after 22 people tested positive for COVID-19.
Sheriff Tim Burkhalter said in a release that tests came back positive for 15 inmates and seven employees and results are still pending on others.
“By activating the Code Red Protocol, we hope to minimize the spread of the coronavirus within our facility,” he said. “The safety and security of our staff, inmates in our care, and the community as a whole is paramount.”
Bulloch County voters continues showing up for in-person early voting at a record-setting pace, according to the Statesboro Herald.
As of Wednesday afternoon, more than 1,000 early voters had taken advantage of the three-day window on the Georgia Southern University campus to cast their ballots in-person for the Nov. 3 election.
Bulloch County Election Supervisor Patricia Lanier Jones reported 1,085 residents had cast their ballots inside the university’s Russell Union as of 4:15 p.m. Wednesday. Early voting that began Tuesday will be available for one more day – Thursday – at the Union in room 1042. It will be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Meanwhile, early in-person voting continues in the elections office at the County Annex. Through 4:15 p.m. Wednesday, 4,464 had voted in person at the Annex. Combined with the voting so far at Georgia Southern, 5,549 total in-person ballots have been cast, Jones said.
Also, as of 4:15 Wednesday afternoon, 7,636 absentee ballots had been mailed to Bulloch County voters’ home addresses at their request, and 4,235 had been completed and returned. In all of the fall 2016 general election, 1,617 absentee ballots were cast in Bulloch County. All absentee ballots must be returned to the elections office no later than 7 p.m. on Nov. 3.
More than 11,000 people have cast their votes in Bibb County for the Nov. 3 election, and early voting lasts almost another two weeks.
More people voted in the first week of early voting in Bibb County than they did for all of early voting for the runoff election in August and the primary election in June.
Macon-Bibb County had 9,369 votes cast in the first week of early voting for the November election while 9,359 votes were cast for early voting in the August election and 5,906 people voted early in the June election, according to the Macon-Bibb County Board of Elections.
After the polls closed on Monday, Bibb County had a total of 11,401 ballots cast. Board of Elections Chair Mike Kaplan said the total amount of early votes is around 20% greater than the total amount of early votes in the 2016 election, which was 9,440 votes.
Albany in-person early voting will be open this weekend, according to the Albany Herald.
The Dougherty County Voter Registration and Elections Office added the Sunday voting day earlier this month. The early voting site will be open from noon-4 p.m. on Sunday and from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. on Saturday at the 222 Pine Ave. Riverfront Resource Center.
A greeter is in place to help voters, she said. Voters who are 75 years of age or older or who are disabled are allowed to move to the front of the line. The greeter also notifies voters of available sample ballots for viewing.
Multiple advance voting locations will open Saturday in the presidential election while Sunday voting will be held at Bell Auditorium.
Saturday voting, which is required by state law, kicks off at three Augusta satellite voting sites that will be open next week in addition to the Bell.
Two sites will be open Saturday in Columbia County, which isn’t offering Sunday voting.
From the Athens Banner Herald:
Voters can cast ballots this weekend at additional sites as Athens-Clarke County kicks off the final week of advance voting before Election Day.
Voters could cast their ballots this week during extended hours at the Athens-Clarke Board of Elections office downtown. The office and the overflow site in City Hall are open until 7 p.m. through Friday.
Beginning Saturday, voters will be able to cast ballots at several more sites around the county.
Oconee voters can also vote this Saturday from 9 a.m to 4 p.m. at the county’s sole advance voting site, the Oconee County Civic Center. That site is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Fridays.
Clarke voters can also vote early this Sunday from noon to 4 p.m., but only at the Board of Elections office and City Hall.
As of the end of the day Wednesday, 7,004 people had voted at the Board of Elections office or City Hall, Long said — around 900 a day through the first eight days of advance voting. Clarke has about 81,000 registered voters.
In Oconee County, some 8,715 people had voted in advance partway through Thursday, and 4,134 absentee ballots had been returned, out of 7,315 that had been requested.
Statewide, about 1.2 million people had voted in advance as of midday Wednesday, and nearly 800,000 by absentee ballot.
Hall County has begun processing absentee mail-in ballots, according to the Gainesville Times.
With less than two weeks remaining before the Nov. 3 election, the Hall County elections office has already begun processing absentee ballots, although the ballots will not be run through the scanner for tabulation until after polls close on Election Day.
Staff, some of whom have been hired as temporary seasonal workers, have been staying busy, as many voters are opting to vote by mail due to concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic. Hall had sent out 27,573 absentee ballots as of Wednesday, Oct. 21, and 11,351 of those had been returned. The county has about 129,000 registered voters, according to Registration Coordinator Kay Wimpye.
Statewide, 805,442 absentee ballots had been cast as of 5 p.m. Wednesday, compared to 103,239 absentee ballots as of Oct. 25, 2016, for the last presidential election, according to the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office.
In the November 2016 election, 4,138 people in Hall voted by mail, and in November 2018, 4,293 voted by mail, so absentee voting in this election has already surpassed both those elections.
Gwinnett County elections will receive $4.2 million dollars in grant funding, according to the AJC.
Gwinnett County commissioners accepted more than $4.2 million in elections grants Tuesday, the bulk of the money intended to be used for election security.
The funds will help the county provide physical and technological support for its elections systems, as well as buy protective equipment like masks, gloves and hand sanitizer for poll workers.
The largest of the four grants approved was for $4.1 million, given by the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a nonpartisan non-profit group dedicated to providing information to voters and helping governments use modern technology for election administration. The group has received $250 million in funding from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Two grants came from federal funds via the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office. One for $15,000 was funded through the Help America Vote Act and is intended to help provide physical security for the county’s voting equipment. Another, worth $6,000, was funded through the CARES Act and will be used for the county’s ballot drop boxes and coronavirus protection for poll workers. A $100,000 grant from the University of Southern California Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy will also fund protective equipment purchases, as well as hazard pay for poll workers.
Bulloch County Sheriff Noel Brown (R) met his opponent in a debate, according to the Statesboro Herald.
Incumbent Sheriff Noel Brown shared the stage with challenger Rey Rodriguez in the forum at Emma Kelly Theater, sponsored by the Statesboro Herald and hosted by the Averitt Center for the Arts. Jim Healy, the Herald’s operations manager and editor, served as moderator and asked the candidates various questions regarding the jail, sheriff’s office and services they provide.
Brown, who has been in law enforcement for more than 26 years, many of which were with the Bulloch County Sheriff’s Office, was elected to office in 2016. Before that he supervised the courts and civil warrants unit under rank as sergeant. He served in the U.S. Army during Desert Storm and Desert Shield.
Congressman Tom Graves‘s staff continues working for the citizens after he left office, according to the Rome News Tribune.
Duties are still being carried out under supervision of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives. They include constituent casework, to include help in handling business with government departments; providing general status updates on pending legislation; and to offer other basic constituent services.
Congressman Doug Collins (R-Gainesville) campaigned in Middle Georgia, according to WGXA.
Collins is but one of more than 20 candidates running for Johnny Isakson’s old Senate seat after he retired at the beginning of 2020. His toughest opponents for the seat include its current holder Kelly Loeffler and Raphael Warnock.
Collins says there will be plenty of time to focus on Warnock later once they’re in a January runoff for that Senate seat.
His main focus leading up to the November 3 election is the difference between himself and Loeffler. Those differences include things such as true “conservative values that have meant something, that’s been proven and trusted.” Those values appear on his voting record in the House on issues like the Second Amendment and pro-life.
“We know the inner workings of the House and the Senate. I’m no stranger to the senators, they know who I am and we’ve been working for a while…for me, it’s simply a change, little bit different rules but actually still doing the same thing. Because we actually know how to do the legislative process because we’ve actually done it.”
Former Republican Congressman Max Burns is running for the open seat in State Senate District 23, according to the Augusta Chronicle.
AccessWDUN looks at the election in State House District 103, currently held by Republican Timothy Barr.
Like other nearby districts, District 103 typically leans red. In fact, the 2020 general election is monumental for Barr, as he has never faced any democratic opposition in a general election for GA House District 103.
Even with that newfound opposition, Barr said he is running for reelection because his top priorities haven’t changed since he first ran for election eight years ago.
“When I first ran, small-business guy, father, husband, and love my community and served in multiple areas, and I just wanted to continue to do that,” Barr said during an interview with Martha Zoller on WDUN’s Morning Talk.
Barr’s website describes him as a father of four with his wife Melinda, and the owner of a construction company. It also states Barr and his wife are active in their church, with Barr currently serving on the deacon board.
Statesboro City Council approved a Nondiscrimination and Equity ordinance, according to the Statesboro Herald.
Statesboro City Council approved the three-part Nondiscrimination and Equity Ordinance by a 4-1 vote Tuesday, adding that Article 2, which includes a 6% margin of preference for minority and female-owned local businesses in city bids, will be revisited after four fiscal years.
That section also includes a nonbinding goal for the city to increase its spending with minority and female-owned local businesses to 20% of the annual total, from the roughly 8% share they reportedly received in three recent years.
Article 3 is the “equity provision,” requiring diversity training for city employees, direction of federal grant funds to historically disadvantaged neighborhoods and a measured and monitored “campaign for equity.”
Brunswick Mayor Cornell Harvey predicts the removal of a Confederate monument and an ensuing lawsuit, according to The Brunswick News.
If commissioners follow the overwhelming sentiment of the dozens who spoke against the monument at public meetings, Harvey believes the commission will vote to remove it and relocate it or put it in storage. And if that happens, Harvey said the city can quickly expect a legal challenge from those who want the monument to remain where it has stood since 1902.
“I think we’ll get dragged into a courtroom,” he said. “It’s going against state law.”
There were discussions about letting voters decide the monument’s fate in a city referendum, but Harvey said commissioners will make the decision Nov. 4, despite the political fallout certain to come and regardless of their choice.
Harvey said he can’t speak for other commissioners and doesn’t know how they will vote, but he has already made up his mind. A lifelong city resident, Harvey said the Confederate monument has been a personal sore spot his entire life. He wants it removed.
Planes, Trains, and Container Ships
Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport will soon be served by Southwest Airlines, according to the Savannah Morning News.
Southwest will become the airport’s ninth airline to provide service to the Savannah area. Air Canada, Delta, Jet Blu, United, American Airlines, Sun Country Airlines and Allegiant, current offer service in Savannah.
According to the [airline’s] social media post, the initial flight schedule and service for Southwest will be announced soon.
“We don’t know a whole lot but they did announce there intent to start which is huge for us in Savannah and Hilton Head,” Director of Marketing Lori Lynah said.
The Georgia Ports Authority held a virtual State of the Ports Address, according to Fox28Media.
“Collectively, the first quarter of our fiscal year has actually been a record, year over year,” said Griff Lynch, GPA’s executive director.
However, those records aren’t without some losses. GPA’s fiscal year began in July, but from March to June, their numbers took a hit because of COVID-19.
Lynch said GPA’s pandemic losses were minimal compared to other ports around the U.S., crediting that to an increase in e-commerce and the leadership of Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.
“The Georgia economy has stayed open, which has helped us,” said Lynch. “I don’t want to make it a political message, but I can tell you for sure that has helped us keep moving.”
Gov. Kemp also made some remarks at the virtual address, thanking the ports for their efforts in keeping people working.
“The fundamentals of Georgia’s economy remain strong thanks to pro-business policies, a world-class workforce, and an unmatched logistics network,” said Kemp.
From the Savannah Morning News:
During August the port handled 441,600 TEUs marking not only the best August on record, but the best overall month on record in the history of the GPA and a monthly record in September growing TEUs by 11.4%, or 42,140, for a total of 412,148 TEUs.
Looking ahead Lynch said he anticipates October to be a break even month year over year, November is looking strong, but it’s too early to predict what will happen in December he said.
“I think maybe the election has a play in it, we’ll have to see what people feel after the election and where we stand, but right now we still have a lot of cargo on the water, which is great and all positive things,” he said.
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